pauk hadn't meant to go so far.
it was meant to be an amateur hunting trip. he'd followed the snowmelt that trickled from moonspear's edge all the way down into the valley, chasing the scent of a beaver; and by the time he realized how far he was from home, he felt it too late to turn back now. his eyes were peeled for any sign of a lodge, perhaps branches strewn about.
but the woods are thick, and he is growing more and more disoriented and exhausted. every tree looks the same. the humidity is unbearable.
calm and collected as he was, he turns his attention toward finding a place to shut his eyes; only for a bit, and then he'd head home. he just needed the strength — his little legs could not possibly carry him all the way back up the mountain like this.
he is concealed — or so he thinks — by a tall berry bush as he drifts into a content slumber.

it worked.
the boy stirs, eyes opening with a slow blink, squinting to adjust to the darkness. groggy, he does not fully register what goes on around him; there is a rather aggressive floral scent that was not there before, and another earthen one that is not quite wolven.
his jaws split in a yawn, tongue unfurling in an almost serpentine manner — and that is when he notices the pair of eyes that look upon him, glowing and uncanny.
he freezes like a deer staring into headlights as a strange feeling of impending doom begins to thud in his ears.

with moonspear being the place that it was, pauk did not necessarily have a sense of stranger danger. he blinks up at the coywoman as if she had magically dispelled all of his concern, and now that he sees her more clearly, he thinks to himself: how bad could she be? she was just a little coyote.
but he wasn't exactly out to make friends, either. his expression remains rather blank and unsatisfied. oh, he murmurs, little black nose twitching. okay.
my name's pauk, he says abruptly, because presumably that was what one was meant to do when meeting a stranger. a totally nice, friendly stranger. who're you?

shhhhhh-aaaoww, the boy parrots, his eyes squinting as he tries to form the syllables. you have a funny name. and it was funny, with this being his first exposure to a foreigner not of the mountain or its sister-villages. did all strangers' names sound like this?
his eyes follow her paws and her teeth, watching hawk-like as she works the plant matter into... something. maybe she was a healer, like anânsiak, because why else would she be making funky plant crafts?
sure, he mumbles when the silence is broken by her question. he wasn't hungry, really, but he wanted to be polite. the warm, watchful eyes linger upon the bundle of weird looking ferns. what're we gunna eat?

but i can't hunt, he interjects, a puzzled look morphing his features. that's why i came out here, n' i didn't find anything. come to think of it, he'd nearly forgotten that was the origin to this adventure — and he hadn't eaten since last night, so why wasn't he hungry?
i was trying to find a bea-- b-- bieber, he stifles a yawn with a raise of his paw to his mouth. i think it got away. i don't really know how to hunt biebers. i was just bored. n' lonely. n' i smelled the bieber and then it ran off.